The Accident Season – Moira Fowley-Doyle

Title: The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle
Publishing Info: August 18, 2015 by Penguin
Genres: Paranormal, Magical Realism, Mystery/Thriller, Young Adult
Find it on the web: Buy from Amazon // GoodreadsDate Completed: July 21, 2015
Related Posts: Spellbook of the Lost and Found

Every October Cara and her family become inexplicably and unavoidably accident-prone. Some years it's bad, like the season when her father died, and some years it's just a lot of cuts and scrapes. This accident season—when Cara, her ex-stepbrother, Sam, and her best friend, Bea, are 17—is going to be a bad one. But not for the reasons they think.Cara is about to learn that not all the scars left by the accident season are physical: There's a long-hidden family secret underneath the bumps and bruises. This is the year Cara will finally fall desperately in love, when she'll start discovering the painful truth about the adults in her life, and when she'll uncover the dark origins of the accident season—whether she's ready or not.

THE ACCIDENT SEASON was a really interesting and unique read for me! My first impressions were that it reminded me of books like PAPER VALENTINE, WE WERE LIARS, and UNSPOKEN and yet it was a book that really stood all on its own. The spooky and romantic atmosphere really brought the book to life and there were some really excellent moments all throughout!

I really loved the concept of “The Accident Season” itself. Every October, Cara and her family suffer countless accidents and injuries — even deaths — and Cara doesn’t really know why it happens. The question remains throughout the book and yes, the ending does provide an answer (thankfully)! The whole concept of it was just so interesting and shocking and curious and I really loved the answer as to why these things were happening and why they were only happening to Cara and her family.

I also really enjoyed the overlying theme of secrets. One character, Elsie, runs a “secrets booth” at school (which turns into a school project every year) so people drop their anonymous secrets there but each character in THE ACCIDENT SEASON is concealing a secret of their own and it was just so interesting to not only see those secrets revealed but also how they all tied into the main story line.  The structure was just great and I really appreciate how cohesive the story was.

I had a bit of struggle in the middle, though, I’ll admit. I was hooked from the beginning by the atmosphere and mystery presented to me but I feel like I got a bit lost in the second third of the book. My interest waned a bit — possibly when the story began to focus more on the characters than the mystery? — but it didn’t last too long because I easily fell back into that excited rhythm once all of the pieces started falling into place.

Overall, I really enjoyed THE ACCIDENT SEASON and it was a delightfully intriguing and spooky read. The book takes place during October (and Halloween) so it’s the perfect book to pick up during the Halloween season too! I can’t wait to hear the responses from fellow readers on this one!

“The View from Goodreads” is a featured section in my reviews that I decided to incorporate! I tend to update my Goodreads status a LOT when I read — reactions, feelings, notes — so I thought it would be fun to share the sort of “reading process”! All status updates are spoiler-free (no specific plot points will be revealed) but will contain reactions to certain pages and/or characters!

Cara // Character Obsessions: Family, Elsie, secrets, romance, answers.
I really liked Cara a lot! She reminded me of a few other great heroines and I was definitely interested in her story. I liked that she felt like a good balance of normal teenager and concerned sleuth once she started investigating the weird goings-on. I didn’t always love her decisions BUT I also think that’s what made her more realistic!

Kept Me Hooked On: Spooky vibes. I really loved the whole feel of this book! I’m not a horror person by any means so I love books like this where it’s spooky and a little scary but not enough to make me run away screaming! The atmosphere was dark and suspicious and it only made me want to read more!
Left Me Wanting More: Mystery in the middle. I felt a bit of a lull in the middle of the book when it dipped more into the character’s story lines rather than the mystery. It wasn’t that I disliked getting to know the characters better but I felt like the mystery sort of stopped for a while and it had been a great momentum that paused.

Addiction Rating
Read it!

This was a really interesting read and I sort of wish I had read it around Halloween time! BUT now I can recommend it to everyone else for a great spooky or Halloween read!

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(Click the cover to see my review!)